[GreenKeys] Teletype and electronics........

[David I. Emery]

On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 05:44:31PM -0400, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:

> At  one point  we  had a teletype model 40 printer   too  only  one... it  
> was neat  and  sold  rather  quickly so I never  got too much time to play 
> with it. 

> In a message dated 4/9/2013 2:22:04 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
> jhhaynes at earthlink.net writes:
> 
> On Tue,  9 Apr 2013, Linger, Mike wrote:
> > ELECTRONICS, including the Teletype  model 40 which is all electronics and
> > for the most part I consider it  junk, but I know some people like it.
> > 
> Sadly, all the Model 40s  seem to be inoperative because the type carrier
> belts have all turned to  crumbs.  In its day it was quite a piece of work.

	At one point in the late 70s I had three model 40s - all
working... One was a 132 column unit I used in the early 80s as a line
printer on various computer gear including early Intel blue cube
ICE/development systems.  Other two were 80 column things that I used
amongst other things to monitor stuff on the 1200 baud high speed AP
and UPI wires.   Upper lower case with the chains I had.

	They were VERY loud... other drum type line printers were quieter.
But they also were pretty damn fast compared to any other TTY I met.
They actually would print software listings at a quite comparable pace
to a medium sized Dataproducts line printer of the era.

	They showed up fairly cheap surplus in good condition in the
Boston area back then.   I later learned the spooks (think NSA related
stuff) had rooms full of them in the 70s for monitoring messages on
international satellites at some local unnamed facilities in the area
(lots of big dishes around the area back then).

	I kept them around in my barn until early 2000s, when someone 
begged me to let him take them off my hands... and much to both our
horror the chains were all mush on all three...  I doubt that any
exist that still run, since the chain was a really special rubberized
thing that carried the type pallets in little molded pockets and once
that went all the type pallets flew every which way...

	I used to have a full set of service documentation for them, but
I am afraid I threw that out after the chain problem became clear and it
seemed they would never run again and I dumped the remaining one.

-- 
  Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, die at dieconsulting.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass 02493
"An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten
'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted pole - in 
celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now either."